


Over Land and Sea

by themangomaureen (Tambourine)



Category: Big Hero 6 (2014)
Genre: Alternate Timelines, Alternate Universe - No San Fransokyo Institute of Technology Fire, Build Slower than Molasses, M/M, No underage, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-01
Updated: 2015-02-09
Packaged: 2018-03-10 01:04:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3271010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tambourine/pseuds/themangomaureen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He hesitates. He stops, for just a moment, to consider his actions, their possible consequences. Abigail would have been ashamed of him. So he walks away.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It was only a sense of duty that had made him even bother to get out of bed in the morning anymore. His life may have fallen to pieces around him, but he still had work to do, even if that was all he really had left for him. Every morning he awoke to an empty apartment, drank his mediocre coffee, and dragged himself to his research lab. Though he seemed calm and collected to the people passing by, there was a cold fury in his movements: a more aggressive than necessary shove to open a door, a heavier than typical scowl on his face.

Anger was a constant companion of his these days, and though it may not be readily apparent, it was always there, sitting below the surface, just waiting to simmer over and swallow everything that he was and everything that he had worked for.

He tried. He tried to keep it together, to stitch back up the hole where the sudden, stinging _absence_ of his daughter had left behind, but every time he tried there was something: a weekly dinner date that would never happen again, a birthday present that he would never get to give, a phone number that he only called to hear her voice on the voicemail message; it wasn’t _fair_. She had only been a child, his child, and her death was being swept under the rug like she was nothing. There would be no investigation, nothing. They expected him to just accept his daughter’s death and not ask any questions, to be grateful that the explosion from the collapse of the portal hadn’t been worse; like it was possible for it to have _been_ worse for him. 

He had watched his only child die and no one had done a damned thing to stop it. Alistair Krei hadn’t done a damned thing to stop it. Instead, he had stood by and given the final go ahead to impress his military buddies even though he knew the data they were reading was strange, that it wasn’t safe. _He_ had killed Abigail. And then that man, if he could even be called that, had the _gall_ to come to _his_ university, his sanctuary, and parade around like the entire thing hadn’t happened.

He has half a mind to walk up to the man and punch him square in the face. He’s turned and is about to march when the lights dim in preparation for the symposium portion of the showcase. He clenches his jaw and turns towards the stage: he still has responsibilities and his work was the only thing he had left going for him in his life.

The presentations, for the most part, are entirely unremarkable. The science is interesting in a pop science sort of way, but most of it lacks a certain depth to it; any application outside of “looking cool”. He’s about to head over to the rocket boots guy when they call the final presentation of the evening: Hiro Hamada.

He starts a bit. He knew that he could expect Tadashi’s younger brother to be applying to SFIT, but he had expected for him to submit an application when they next opened or to enroll at the next year’s showcase, not this year’s. He scanned the crowd for his TA, who was sure to be close by. Tadashi was not difficult to find: the tall, broad-shouldered young man could easily be spotted at a distance. He’s putting something large and blue by the edge of the stage and leaning down to talk comfortingly to his brother.

He turns his attention to the stage, successfully distracted from his earlier anger; it would be interesting to see what this young man had managed to pull together in less than three weeks. If he had managed to make fully functional magnetic bearing servos in his garage, with no formal engineering education, he could only imagine what else he could come up with.

The young man walked onto the stage, nervousness apparent. He stammered out a sentence and presented a small robot, a “microbot”, and he was about to be disappointed, but then Tadashi gave his brother a reassuring look and _magic_ happened. Thousands and thousands of the small robots erupted from the blue bins that Tadashi and his other friends had scattered throughout the exposition hall and they came pouring forwards. He watched in wonder and a small bit of disbelief as Hiro effortlessly wowed the newly gathered audience with an impressive display of technical knowledge and showmanship. He finished his presentation to thunderous applause and cheers. 

He couldn’t help but stare at the boy as he jumped down from the stage and performed some complex high-five with his brother. Did the boy even realize that he had revolutionized robotics? He himself was a little bit awed; his theories had never been intended to be applied to small scale uses; how had he worked around the holes and exceptions to what had been commonly accepted as _fundamental laws of robotics_.

Abigail would have _loved_ this, he thought to himself, the familiar sting of anger becoming more and more apparent. The feeling only intensifies when he sees Alistair Krei and his assistant approaching the youngest Hamada, no doubt with a blank check for the design and an internship offer for the creator; Alistair Krei thought that any problem could be solved if you threw enough money at it.

He strode over, jaw set, prepared to do _something_. Tadashi gets there first. He stood, hand firmly clasped on Hiro’s shoulder as he listens to Krei’s proposal. Both are silent for a moment, considering. It was strange really, he thought as he stood back, just out of sight. It was as if there were an entire conversation happening between the two that no one but they were privy to. With a slight nod of his head, Hiro turns back to Krei and…

Rejects his offer. He had to admit, he was a bit surprised; he knew for a fact that he, at Hiro’s age would not have been able to resist such a lucrative offer, even if it had meant making a deal with the devil. Krei turns to leave, seemingly rebuffed, but Tadashi stops him. Of course. Of course Krei had tried to steal a microbot, that’s just the kind of man he was: manipulative, scheming, and cold; willing to steal the work of a young inventor just to turn a profit.

For a brief moment, he had been tempted by the microbots. It would have been so easy, too easy, to take them and use them to take revenge on the man responsible for his daughter’s death. To take the neurotransmitter and tear him limb from limb, to destroy everything that he had ever worked for just as he had done to him mere months ago. The urge is difficult to resist; he feels almost compelled to do it.

Something stops him.

Maybe it’s the niggling bit of conscience that he has telling him that using a promising invention from an even more promising young mind for such a terrible, terrible purpose is wrong and would probably destroy the boy.

Maybe it’s a scientific curiosity in the mind that had just so casually turned the field of robotics and its fundamental assumptions on its head.

Or maybe because every time he looks at the younger Hamada, he can’t help but see a bit of Abigail in his mischievous smirk.

Whatever it ends up being, he can’t bring himself to sully someone else’s _brilliant, brilliant_ invention; not even for this. He would have been no better than Krei for doing it and Abigail would have never forgiven him for it.

He somehow manages a small smile and personally hands Hiro Hamada his acceptance letter.

If Hiro Hamada is anything like his brother, then his lab will be all the better for having him.


	2. Chapter 2

Hiro Hamada is simultaneously exactly like his older brother and nothing like his older brother and he has no idea what to make of that. 

Tadashi had been more than eager to share his workspace, and with labor laws and medical next-of-kin and all the paperwork that came along with hiring a minor, the department head had been inclined to agree. Tadashi had quickly squared up his belongings so that his brother could be moved in by the time the beginning of the new rolled around, even sooner if he could have had his way. 

He’d admit that he’d been more than a bit bemused at Tadashi’s sudden enthusiasm. 

“Most people wouldn’t be thrilled about having half of their workspace taken away,” he had commented idly to Tadashi as he watched his TA search for a new place to put his soldering station. 

“My brother’s awesome,” he had shrugged, putting the station immediately to the left of his computer. He cracked a grin. “And it’s not like I’m not used to sharing a room with him.” 

And that…was something he hadn’t known. He had known, of course, that Tadashi lived with his aunt (presumably because his parents had died, but he wasn’t going to press his TA on that) and that his aunt owned and lived above the Lucky Cat Café. It made sense, thinking about it now, that Tadashi and Hiro would share a room; housing above storefronts was not known for being spacious. It also explained a little bit more about Tadashi and Hiro’s relationship. In his experience, siblings that were forced to be in such close contact either were the very best of friends or couldn’t stand one another; it seemed that Tadashi and Hiro were the “best friend” variety. Idly, he wondered if Tadashi was even _capable_ of disliking someone; he had certainly never seen it happen and the young man didn’t seem to have a mean bone in his entire body. He snapped himself out of his musings and continued to chat with his TA before excusing himself for the evening; Tadashi wasn’t the only one who had things to prepare for Hiro’s arrival. 

Everything, of course, made significantly more sense once Hiro had begun working in “The Nerd Lab”. It became apparent that both Tadashi and Hiro primarily thought of themselves as one-half of The Hamada Brothers and while he would usually object to them pigeonholing themselves as that, it seemed to work quite well for them. That wasn’t to say that they didn’t have different “modes”, so to speak, there was still Tadashi Hamada, biomedical and mechanical engineer and then Hiro Hamada, electrical and robotics engineer, and then there was Tadashi-and-Hiro, the collective that had the _strangest, but most technically impressive_ work that he had seen from undergraduates. In addition to continuing to develop their respective projects, they had somehow managed to find time to create: a collapsible hoverboard (which Hiro now rode to classes, again much to his brother’s dismay), a “smart helmet” for Tadashi and GoGo, and an array of devices and sensors that, although unconventional, would make everyone’s research go a bit more smoothly. 

Overall, once they had gotten past the initial hiccups that came with introducing a new person into an established routine, productivity had skyrocketed. Tadashi had never been a slouch when it came to meeting deadlines, but even with his ambitious schedule, he had been breezing through the deadlines; at this rate, he’d be done with his project’s databases in mere weeks!

And it wasn’t just the Hamada brothers. He recalled Tadashi once saying that his brother would fit right in at his lab, and now he truly understood the full meaning of that. With him, Hiro had brought…something that seemed to energize everyone working in the lab. It seemed like every time he came by the lab nowadays, there was some interesting development being shown to him: improved precision of the laser-induced plasma, a new way they had found to reduce the charging time of traditional lithium-ion batteries, a more efficient supercapacitor. If he were being honest, he would say that it was all making him come by the lab more often. Seeing everyone’s newly renewed passion in their work had quickly become one of the only joys in his life, and that probably said more about him than it did the quality of the work that he was seeing, but the point still stood. 

Sometimes he’d look at the Hamadas and wonder how two radically different people could get along so well (not that he was going to press it and risk messing something up). Hiro was all rough edges and sarcasm and Tadashi was just a gentle, patient young man. While Tadashi tended to be more methodical and had a quiet sort of enjoyment to his work, Hiro worked with a single-minded, almost manic passion. It was truly a bit perplexing that they worked so well together, but as long as there were no problems and they were cranking out results, then he wasn’t going to question their odd dynamic. 

He started as he pulled himself out of his thoughts; in his boredom (due to literally no one coming by his office during open hours), he had been stuck in his head for way too long. He looked at his computer one final time, sending off a couple of quick replies to emails that had come while he was lost in thought and powered the machine down for the evening. He stood from his desk, stretching as he did; office hours were hell on his neck. 

He almost didn’t even notice that there was someone standing right in front of him.

“Hi, Dr. Callaghan,” someone called. He glanced up, curious at to who it could be this late in the evening. He was only slightly surprised to see Hiro loitering in his still-open doorway. 

“Dashi asked me to bring these by you office on my way home,” he grinned, holding up a small box filled to the brim with papers. “Graded homeworks for your Ethics in Robotics course. He also told me to tell you that he’s started on the Feedback Control homework; he says they should be done by Friday.” 

He took the box of papers from Hiro and put them in the top drawer of his desk. He’d hand them back in class tomorrow. He turned back to his newest lab worker. 

“Have you considered what we talked about last week?”

Hiro frowned lightly, but not angrily. “I don’t know about publishing just yet. There are still some kinks that need to be worked out in locking a design after the transmitter’s been removed.”

He gave a small sound of acknowledgement. 

“I’m not going to harp on it, but I would encourage you to keep the thought in your mind,” he advised. “It’s never to early to start building a list of publications.”

Hiro smiled lightly and brought his hand up to rub the back of his neck nervously, “I suppose. I just want to make sure that everything is the best it can be before I send it off to be torn apart by my “peers”.”

_Torn apart?_ His brows furrowed slightly. Did Hiro not realize that his microbots had exposed a _huge_ fault in the assumptions in the fundamental laws of their shared field? In his own research? The only reason that no one had beat him to the punch was that no one, including him, could figure out how in the hell he had done it. 

“I’m sure that anything you put forth on the matter would be well-received,” he reassured. 

Their conversation was interrupted by a loud chirrup presumably coming from Hiro’s phone in his pocket. Apparently, judging from their slight jumps at the loud noise, they had both forgotten that Hiro was on his way home before he had stopped by. He nodded understandingly, “The café calls, I see.” 

Hiro nodded apologetically. “Aunt Cass needs some help with inventory and, well, I’m still in trouble for getting both Tadashi and me arrested.”

Wait, what. 

“Bye, Dr. Callaghan. See you tomorrow!” Hiro called, unfurling his board and quickly departing.

He stared at the doorway where his researcher had been mere moments before. Honestly, while he _was_ curious how Tadashi and Hiro had managed to be arrested without him hearing about it, he wasn’t really sure he wanted to know. He had learned quickly with the Hamada brothers that some things he would just have to let slide. 

He shook his head, feeling just a little bit lighter than before. Truly the Hamadas were an odd pair.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was hoping to get this chapter posted a bit earlier, but research hell came sooner than anticipated. Provided that nothing else goes horridly wrong (knock on all(!) of the wood), the next chapter should be up in less than a week.

**Author's Note:**

> Based off of the kinkmeme prompt found here: http://bigherokink.livejournal.com/1106.html?thread=1362#t1362
> 
> Okay, I'll be the first to admit that I'm going to be playing fast and loose with the timeline here; this storyline is going to span years. I have a good bit written, but honestly, I have no idea how long it will end up being; I'm at 4000+ words right now and am nowhere near finished. I hope to update this at least once per week and am planning ahead so that when I inevitably fall into research hell, this can still be updated. 
> 
> You might have also noticed that despite the Robert Callaghan/Hiro Hamada pairing, this is not going to be underage; like I said, this story will span years. It'll happen, just very, very slowly.
> 
> Also, sorry if this is doing weird things to alerts; I think something is wrong with my account and so nothing I post has been appearing; I'm trying to do a bit of troubleshooting on my end before I contact Ao3; so sorry if things get kinda funky for a bit.


End file.
